Avatar Studios Becomes BerkleeNYC – Preservation Includes Mayor’s Office and Financier Pete Muller

The next phase for Avatar Studios has been revealed – and its future may prove fascinating.

Avatar Studios’ near-two-year quest to connect with a buyer and successfully complete the transaction has come to an end. And with that, a new beginning: while it had been widely presumed that Berklee College of Music would officially take over the revered space, it turns out that there’s much more to the story.

In a development that was kept firmly under wraps, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Berklee today jointly announced that with the support of the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME) and the Economic Development Corporation (EDC), along with Berklee Trustee and quantitative investing pioneer Pete Muller, Berklee will renovate the 33,000 sq. ft. 53rd Street facility and transform it. The outcome will be BerkleeNYC, promised to be a next-generation recording and video production facility servicing the city’s music, theater, television, and film industries.

BerkleeNYC will preside next over Avatar’s world-famous Studio A.

Endowed with funds from both MOME and the EDC, BerkleeNYC will host both free and tuition-based educational programs, performances, and resources for local musicians. In addition to the studio renovation, the building’s lower level will be converted into a flexible-use practice/performance venue, including an affordable rehearsal space featuring a professional-size stage and state-of-the-art sound, lighting, and video technology. A video control room to capture and post-produce video from across the building will be onsite, as well as a virtual reality/augmented reality studio, and flexible spaces for ensemble practice rooms and classrooms.

Muller reportedly acquired the complex for slightly under $20 million. Muller will in turn lease the studios to Berklee. The anticipated cost of renovating the space and operating is expected to require an initial investment of $25 million, with Berklee contributing $19 million to that cost and the other $6 million being provided by NYC.

Addressing the biggest concerns of the professional audio community, Berklee plans to continue operating the studio commercially as the re-christened Power Station at BerkleeNYC, a branding that reconnects the facility to its roots with the name given it by the original owner and designer Tony Bongiovi.

The accompanying preservation and modernization of the facility, which is almost uniquely equipped in NYC to accommodate full orchestra and live Broadway cast album recordings, should ensure that elite recording will continue to record in New York. Coincident, Berklee will have a broader opportunity to nurturing musicians and engage in what they term “meaningful community outreach” – in other words, the plan is to make Power Station at BerkleeNYC a hub of musical and audio activity, and not just wall it off to all but enrolled students.

Revered Rooms Sought New Owners

Avatar’s availability for sale was made known in an unusually public way, with Avatar Entertainment Corporation’s owner Chieko Imamura and its president, Kirk Imamura, launching an organized PR campaign to announce the sale in September of 2015.

The idea behind the full-court press – instead of the industry-standard covert deal – was to keep Avatar in caring musical hands, and hopefully maintain the studio’s status as NYC’s audio production flagship. Spreading a wide net increased that chance, and apparently the Imamura’s were willing to wait the process out a while.

Designed by Bongiovi, Avatar launched as The Power Station in 1977. Bongiovi’s studios at 441 West 53^rd Street would prove to be timeless, then and now standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the world’s very best recording studios. Countless TV and movie scores and Broadway cast albums were recorded and mixed there. Platinum was mined constantly for Madonna, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Lady Gaga, Bruce Springsteen, and many more — –an incredible 400+ gold and platinum albums were made at Avatar/Power Station. In addition, the complex was an HQ for private producer, mixing, mastering and music business suites over the years, further supporting the NYC music economy in the process.

“The rooms just sound right,” says Robert L. Smith, who went from being an assistant engineer at Power Station in the early ‘90’s to founding Defy Recordings, engineering/producing/mixing for Lady Gaga, David Bowie, U2, Alice Cooper, Chaka Khan, Aerosmith, and many more. “Those studios show that in recording, it’s really about the whole tracking space, not just what goes in between the instrument and the microphone. At Avatar/Power Station, it could be a benefit not to mic things close, so you could get that breathing sound into the microphone. If you couldn’t get a good sound in there, as an engineer or a musician, then you should probably start thinking about that second job.”

Economic Realities

Avatar enjoyed the status of being one of the few studios that owned its own building, contributing to its sense of stability for many years. But eventually the disparity between its value as a recording business and as a piece of Manhattan real estate became too much for even the deeply committed Imamuras to look past. A sale simply made too much sense, especially after they’d been keeping at it nonstop since 1996.

By taking over Power Station as relative unknowns in the NYC recording scene, the Imamuras had everybody guessing as to what might come next. Two decades later, their stewardship can only be seen as an uninterrupted commitment to audio excellence. At no point were there ever murmurs about a drop in quality within the complex, with Kirk Imamura emerging as an ideal frontman, as highly respected as he is understated. The studio’s VP of Operations, Tino Passante, became synonymous with Avatar’s extremely professional workflow and personal touch throughout the era as well.

For the Imamuras, running Avatar no doubt felt progressively harder in the decades following their purchase. Despite their leading status, Avatar’s rooms were no less subject to the music industry pressures that have drastically reduced studio profit margins everywhere. Maintaining rooms on the scale of Studio A require constant care and attention. There were also workforce issues, with the 12-person in-house team of assistant engineers, maintenance techs, and production assistants voting to organize, gaining union representation with Local 802 AFM in 2015.

Add on to all of that the fact that the real estate beneath their feet was becoming more and more valuable, at the exact same time that their business was becoming less so. The Imamura’s decision to to sell was a complex one, balancing commerce with commitment and sheer energy levels. While their official announcement to sell Avatar was met grimly by the local pro audio community, it was also generally accepted as understandable.

NYC Impact

Interestingly, the Avatar transition comes along at the same time that New York City’s political leadership is putting a fresh emphasis on the music business.

In March, NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio and the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME) released the findings of a comprehensive study examining the economic impact of the music industry in NYC. The study, conducted by Boston Consulting Group, found that the overall New York City music industry generates 60,000 jobs, $5 billion in wages and $21 billion in economic output. Further, its growth actually outpaces that of the local economy, with music-related jobs and wages growing at annual rates of 4 and 7 percent respectively, compared to 3 and 5 percent in the City overall. As a result of these findings, NYC stands among the largest music ecosystems in the world, and could possibly be the largest.

In particular, the “infrastructure and support services” vertical – one of four revenue pillars identified and encompassing recording studios, lawyers, and various other professionals — was found to represent 4,100 jobs, $400 million in wages, and $1.3 billion in economic output for NYC (part of one of the world’s largest music ecosystems, with $21 billion in economic output.)

The report noted, “This segment of the ecosystem accounts for a relatively small portion of direct jobs, wages, and economic output (roughly 10 percent or less for each of these metrics). It has also been experiencing modest to no growth. The culprit: industry trends. Traditional print media and studio recording have been impacted by new digital technologies and preferences.

“The growth of ‘do-it-yourself’ recording, for instance, has contributed to declines at the city’s recording studios. As one record label executive notes, ‘anyone with a MacBook Pro and a soundproof room can make a record today.’ Yet, overall, New York City’s traditional recording studios have fared better than their counterparts in other music cities. Local demand for recording podcasts, TV voice-overs, Broadway albums, and other types of sound recording work has helped stem – to a degree – the declines.”

Seeing the job losses that accompanied the declines of top-level recording, the Avatar sale caught the attention of the highest levels of city government, with reinvigoration of the sector emerging as a priority of MOME Commissioner Julie Menin.

That top-level of attention dovetailed with Berklee’s goals of geographic expansion, which has led it to already offer undergraduate and graduate degree programs at campuses in Boston and Valencia, Spain. Establishing a presence in New York City made sense for the school, who teamed up with MOME, EDC and Muller to realize the vision for what could be a pioneering public-private project.

Muller, who spearheaded the project, is the most under-the-radar player in the script. A pianist and singer-songwriter, he is more prominently the founder and CEO of leading quantitative investment firm PDT Partners. His deep financial background also includes positions at Morgan Stanley and the Process Driven Trading group (PDT), which he founded. Taken together, his portfolio spans math, music, investing, and philanthropy – a mix that logically drew him into the Avatar sale.

Berklee President Roger H. Brown saw the transaction as an opportunity to not just move into NYC, but to move audio forward. “So many influential recordings have been made there and it puts us at the nexus of the vital music, theater, and dance communities of New York City,” he said. “We intend both to re-imagine the recording studio of the future and add a powerful educational program to support our many Berklee alumni who intend to live, work, and create in New York.”

Stephen Webber is executive director of BerkleeNYC and Berklee’s dean of Strategic Initiatives. As former director of the Master of Music Production, Technology and Innovation program at Berklee’s campus in Valencia, Spain, he will now lead the NYC center and develop the programs. “This project is important not only to Berklee’s mission, but also to preserve the legacy of New York’s prominence as a seminal center for recorded music,” Webber commented. “It will also create industry jobs, help attract national musical events, and encourage economic vibrancy in the creative industries.”

“Saving and rehabilitating this amazing recording studio and giving Berklee a New York home is a win not only for our city’s incomparable music scene but for the thousands of music-loving New Yorkers who will benefit from Berklee’s robust public programs,” said NYC’s Media and Entertainment Commissioner Menin of the city’s involvement. “We are extremely proud to have played a role in this project and look forward to continuing to work with Berklee to ensure that they provide good career opportunities and support a music community that has made New York the music capital of the world.”

Funding from MOME and EDC will establish programs at BerkleeNYC including continuing education, career strategy, grants, and skills acquisition for New York musicians, composers, producers, and engineers. Public access will also increase, with opportunities to attend artist lectures, workshops, performances, and master classes, while New York City’s public school students will be able to take courses in performance, songwriting, and production. In addition, BerkleeNYC will also feature public exhibits that memorialize the facility’s deep musical history.

Also on the agenda are teacher training sessions for Berklee City Music, Amp Up NYC, and Little Kids Rock; programs exploring the intersection of music, dance, theater, and technology; talent incubation; and internships for Berklee College of Music and Boston Conservatory at Berklee students.

Downtime Until 2019, and Something More for NYC?

No matter Berklee’s stated intentions, or how aggressive their timeline, Avatar’s rooms will be offline for some time – a Berklee spokeswoman stated that the plan is for the studio to re-open and programs to begin in 2019. For at least that span, the studio’s frequent clients will have to find new places to record string ensembles, orchestras, Broadway cast albums, and a host of other projects where Avatar was always the first call.

Avatar is only one facility, but it encompassed seven commercial production studios within – plus Fred Kevorkian Mastering – with Studio A standing as an unmatched classic. While BerkleeNYC’s intentions sound good, the wait for the return will be long and the same amount of studio time as when it was a 100% commercial facility is by no means guaranteed. If the available booking hours drop significantly, that’s a development that could affect the entire region’s overall drawing power — Avatar’s bookings no doubt benefitted from the powerful incentives of NY States Film Production and Post Production tax credits, and its presence likewise often made it an even easier call for out-of-state production companies to choose New York for the audio portion of projects.

Changes to availability of a flagship commercial facility could have a ripple effect in a number of directions throughout NYC. Overall recording outlay in the region could drop, at least temporarily, without Avatar’s guiding star; existing facilities like the Dimenna Center for Classical Music on W. 37^th Street, or Manhattan Center with its newly re-launched Studio 7 may pick up the slack; new upstarts could also emerge to provide fresh options.

For the moment, producer Robert Smith is concerned. “There’s a few options, but nothing that feels like a lateral move,” he says. “I don’t know who’s stepping up.”

GRAMMY award winning engineer Jim Anderson, Professor at NYU-Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, estimates he’s engineered 1,000+ sessions at Avatar/Power Station since 1989. Like Smith and many of his colleagues, he’s stepping up his investigations as Avatar transitions to BerkleeNYC.

“What we really need are rooms,” he observes. “A lot of times when I was recording at Avatar, I wasn’t using the console except to monitor. I don’t need a big desk – what I need is a room, where musicians are able to see and hear each other. I’ll be looking all fall to try and find something as good as Avatar. At some point, I’m hoping someone out there will see a need, and fill it by building another space.”

While the possibility of such a development may seem far-fetched, the emergence of a brand new player has a relatively recent precedent. When NYC film and TV mixing stalwart Sound One went dark in 2012, death knells for Northeast audio post rang far and wide. Then Harbor Sound opened in Tribeca approximately six months later, bringing 10,000 feet of fully modernized Dolby mix suites online, a feat they followed up in 2016 with the launch of Harbor Grand, a 4,500 sq. ft. facility which represents NYC’s lone Hollywood-sized theatrical mix stage.

The storied rooms’ preservations are a welcome development. But maybe NYC should be greedy for even more. Could another sharp-eyed entrepreneur seize the day, and similarly see opportunities multiply along the way?

Berklee: Watching the New Guard

While Berklee may indeed prove to be a boon, that won’t be known for a while. The need for another audio engineering school in the NYC area will be hotly debated, and despite the ambitious plans, it remains to be seen whether the new owners will employ more engineers and audio professionals than the Avatar regime.

In addition to Avatar’s employees, the gear inside the studio (consoles include a custom Neve 8088, 72-input SSL 9000J, 72-input Neve VRP, SSL 4000G, alongside one of the world’s largest collections of Pultec EQs), as well as perhaps it’s less-famous rooms, all face uncertain fates. Not to mention the clients, who will need to make alternate recording plans until at least 2019.

While a music-oriented tenant like Berklee comes as at least a partial relief, it may not prove 100% satisfactory to many. Even though commercial sessions will still available, with so many more functions being executed within the building, Avatar’s irreplaceable rooms will almost certainly be harder to book then they were before.

And while audio opportunities still abound in the NYC region due to ever-increasing creation of content, the path to employment post-graduation is nowhere near as clear as it used to be. A newly incoming audio school will be challenged to show why it’s different, necessary and effective. From four-year colleges to trade schools and one-off options, the live learning options in and around NYC easily number in the dozens, meaning Berklee is buzzing straight into a hornet’s nest of intense competition.

For his part, Tony Bongiovi sees positive possibilities for his brainchild to move forward as an institution of higher learning. “It’s going to be an invaluable teaching tool,” he says. “There are a lot of universities that offer degrees in recording arts and science that have studios, but Berklee has the ultimate studio, like no other on the entire planet. If commercial clients are amenable, they should be able to integrate sessions with teaching. When I ran the studio and sessions, we had ‘interns’ that had opportunities to learn and observe. Coincidentally, a lot of them from Berklee.”

For the studios’ creator, BerkleeNYC may offer a very different way for the next generation of audio engineers to learn. “During my time at Power Station, all of our sessions were strictly private and closed.  As such, there was no access to the studios, control rooms, or the private areas where musicians, engineers and producers worked. There was no opportunity for anyone not directly participating in the recordings to observe performances and the dialogue and directives of some of the great artists and producers like Nile Rogers, Bruce Springsteen, Mick Jagger, Barbra Streisand to name but a few. I would like to see Power Station at Berklee NYC create unique opportunities  for the students to observe, learn and perhaps participate.”

In the meantime, the three-way partnership between Berklee, New York City, and Pete Muller represents uncharted territory. It’s a civic/corporate/philanthropic initiative on an unprecedented scale in NYC’s audio space. And while there’s no doubt urgency to get the program moving and make good on promises, 2019 feels like a long way away right now.

Many people who care about Avatar’s sound and saw Berklee’s involvement coming weren’t thrilled by the anticipated rebrand – they wanted assurance of ongoing access.  But it seems disingenuous to dog this deal. After all, isn’t this what everybody said they wanted? The new tenant is a stable, well-funded organization with a proven commitment to music, and they’re going to keep the treasured studios intact – not convert them into condos. The city’s involvement raises the odds for long-term stability, but also introduces a bureaucratic aspect that comes with its own slow pace and uncertainties.

A school might not seem sexy, but civic intervention along with a philanthropic white knight was an unexpected wrinkle that keeps things interesting. For now Berklee, New York City and Pete Muller should be given the benefit of the doubt, with the expectation that their presence will prove positive to regional music production.

As Power Station at BerkleeNYC commences with its plans, the next chapter of this storied facility is about to be written.

• David Weiss

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